Thursday, 22 March 2012

Geoscience Collections at BGS

In our first post, we should like to provide some background information about the British Geological Survey (BGS), the lead partner in the project.

Founded in 1835, the British Geological Survey (BGS) is the world's oldest national geological survey and the United Kingdom's premier centre for earth science information and expertise.

As a public sector organisation, BGS is responsible for advising the UK government on all aspects of geoscience as well as providing impartial geological advice to industry, academia and the public. We also undertake an extensive programme of overseas research, surveying and monitoring, including major institutional strengthening programmes in the developing world.

The BGS is part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), which is the UK's main agency for funding and managing research, training, and knowledge exchange in the environmental sciences. Our annual budget is in the region of £52m, about 50 per cent of which comes from NERC's Science Budget, with the remainder coming from commissioned research from the public and private sectors. Further details may be found in our Annual Report.

The NGDC holds core and samples from approximately 24,000 boreholes and wells, both onshore and offshore (UK Continental Shelf) in a “state of the art” core store at Keyworth, Nottingham.

The BGS houses the National Geoscience Data Centre (NGDC), one of NERC’s seven data centres. The NGDC includes major digital holdings (e.g. digital geological maps, a wide range of images and scans, and numerous indexes), extensive records and maps collections, and probably the largest collection of British geosciences samples. These include onshore and offshore borehole and well samples, fossils, and mineralogy and petrology samples. The fossil collections include over 30,000 type, figured and cited fossils – of which the type fossils form a significant part of this project.